


two timer

by midwinter_stars



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Emetophobia, Fluff, M/M, Rarepair, Sickfic, crackship, i care for these two so much, vomit tw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-03 22:13:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14005944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midwinter_stars/pseuds/midwinter_stars
Summary: This has probably been the worst day of Konoha Akinori's life, but it's nowhere near to how bad it's been for his boyfriend.How do you tell your feverish boyfriend "I love you, but please don't throw up on me again" in a polite manner?





	two timer

**Author's Note:**

> If crackships are not your cup of tea, please don't hate on this; just don't read it. I don't know how it came to be, but I genuinely ship these two... if you'd like to comment, it would make my day.

If the night could’ve gone any worse, it would have.

  
It isn’t a particularly _good_ movie; nothing the online reviews had claimed it’d be, anyways. He and Tarou only went so they could whisper satirical comments to one another the entire time. The popcorn was stale, the drinks tasted like carbonated water, and they sure as hell hadn’t been willing to buy overpriced, expired candy from the counter.

  
If Akinori had noticed just how _green_ Onagawa had looked through the movie, or how shifty he’d been all afternoon, he thinks it might’ve gone a little better.

  
He’s prepared to make a snarky joke about the last line said when he turns to his boyfriend, but thinks twice when he watches the way Tarou’s swaying nervously. A panic attack? He can’t tell what’s going on for the life of him, and he's shot at trying to guess-

  
But then, the raven-haired boy shifts slightly in his seat, hand pressed to his mouth, and Akinori decides at that moment that _yes, Tarou is going to be sick and I don’t want to be the trash can._

  
“I- I need t’go-”

  
Akinori shuffles, trying to usher Tarou past him. “I know, I know, come on-”

  
And in the moment that Onagawa stumbles forward, three things happen.

  
One: there’s a collective gasp as he doubles over, gagging.

Two: Tarou throws up in a silent movie theater full of countless people.

And three: _it’s all over Konoha’s lap._

  
Tarou crouches in the aisle, burping up another mouthful of sick on the floor; Akinori bites his tongue to keep from swearing. There’s a lady in front of them who’s turned around and is asking Onagawa if he needs help, oh _God_ , he’s crying, this couldn’t get any worse-

  
Except, _no_ , he throws up a _third_ time, all over Konoha’s shoes.

  
He jumps up from his chair, and the whole _theater_ is watching them, and there’s vomit all over him, and it’s not _his_ \- he can’t throw up, too-

  
It takes him a minute to realize that he’s perched on his seat like a distrustful parrot, and Onagawa is being coaxed into a standing position by a total stranger, and he’s already had a bad enough time and is no good with people of any sort- and yes, that keening noise is coming from his own mouth, and he should probably stop-

  
_This date is going fantastic._

  
There’s a custodian who’s come in to see what all the fuss is about; Konoha hisses a strained “ _Thank you_ ,” to the woman who’d helped, then resorted to almost shoving Tarou out of the aisle. “Let’s… let’s go. Let’s go.”

  
So, dripping with someone else’s sick, Akinori pushes a violently ill Tarou out of the theater doors, where he throws up in the lobby trash can.

  
About forty heads turn to collectively look at the man covered in puke and the second man heaving up his lunch into a public waste bin. He silently wills Onagawa to stop throwing up, rubbing at his shoulder with one hand, albeit a little more firm than he should’ve been.

  
 _Fucking great_.

  
\---

  
The first thing Akinori does when they’ve driven home is shower.

  
More precisely, he strips his sick-soiled shirt off, tossing it into the trash can.

  
He’s lucky they have two bathrooms- because the minute he’d put the car into park, Tarou’d rushed inside and slammed the door behind him. Though, Konoha couldn’t particularly care less at the moment, because the smell of the mess all over _him_ was bringing him to the point of needing to throw up-

  
He sinks down against the shower wall, hugging his arms to himself with a shudder.

  
No hot water. Just cold. Cold, because if it’s hot, it’s gonna remind him of all the events that just transpired. He’s just gonna leave it running. Sleep. Forget what happened earlier.

  
Part of him wants to stay in the shower for the rest of the afternoon and ignore Tarou completely, but the other part knows that if he leaves Onagawa alone, he’s going to lose that little bit of dignity that he has left, and the sick boy’s already mortified enough as it is… panicked, ill Tarou is not a good type of Tarou. Panicked Tarou in general is not a good person to leave alone.

  
So Akinori steps out of the shower, slipping a shirt and boxers on, drying his hair with a messy swipe of the towel.

  
He peeks out of the bathroom, into an eerily dark apartment- his apartment, because Tarou was outstandingly far from his home, in some foreign place, sick to his stomach in public and completely _horrified_ \- what if he hadn’t made it to the bathroom? Konoha blanched at the thought of having to clean up a mess like _that_.

  
“Tarou,” he calls, cupping his hand against his mouth to carry the echo. There’s no response- as he expected- so he rushes to the other side of their apartment, testing the guest bathroom handle in futility. It’s unlocked, but he feels like it’d be awful to barge in after all that’d occurred.

 

“Hey, Tarou.”

  
The only response he gets is a pathetic-sounding gurgle and a resounding splash of something hitting the toilet water.

  
“Babe…”

  
Onagawa gives a thin wail, followed by a gag; Akinori cringes, but figure he might as well open the door. The curly-haired boy is pale white against the porcelain, eyes red-rimmed.

  
He rushes to pull his boyfriend’s hair back as a surge of vomit makes its way past his lips.

“Oh, man.” He runs his fingers through sweaty locks, thumbing a trail of tears away from the other boy’s face as lightly as he dares- the latter is clad in a t-shirt and black sweats, sans only the sweatshirt he’d been wearing earlier. He has to be grateful that Tarou at least wears clothes he can sleep in- because it’d be hell getting him to change out of something fancier. He can spot the discarded piece of clothing in the bathtub, likely covered in something he’d rather not touch at the moment.

  
Konoha strains to snatch and wet down the corner of a washcloth in the sink from where he’s sitting on the floor, wiping Onagawa’s chin. “You… you look really bad.”

  
Curly raven hair is pulled back into a loose, small bun, hand moving under Tarou’s shirt to rub circles into the clammy skin beneath. “Do you think it’s food poisoning? I can get you some water, or-”

“-I’m sorry, I’m s-so sorry-” the interruption is cut off by a cough that sends him over the toilet bowl again, face taking on an ashy, grey sort of quality. His fingers grip the sides of the seat so hard that his knuckles are bone-white.

“Are you _really_ apologizing?”

Akinori gives a small sound of alarm when Tarou’s cry is turned into a spew of vomit that forces a strange noise in his throat, and he lets out a sob after choking on his own spit. “Aw… hey. You’re okay. Calm down. Please calm down. You're kinda... scaring me.” Konoha has to tell himself not to bolt when another round of sick comes forth, puke dripping from Tarou’s nose.

  
As much as he wants to kiss it all better, Akinori definitely doesn’t want to be the home to another bout of bodily fluids.

  
Tarou retches loudly into the empty space, liquid dripping from his mouth into the mess.

  
“I-” Onagawa gasps against a sob, dry-heaving painfully. “I _threw up_ on y-you-” he stops himself in lieu of spitting up a thin stream of bile into the soiled water. “Everyone _saw me_ -”

“...Yeah,” is the only thing that Konoha can force out, cringing at the noise of puke hitting water. “You gotta calm down-”

“I haven’t been able to st-stop throwing up since- since we got home-” his words are cut off by an angry-sounding burble from his stomach, and he hunches over the water again. “Can’t- it _hurts_ , Nori-”

“Sweetheart, calm down…”

  
The sit in silence for a while, offset by each noise from his boyfriend’s stomach and an assortment of queasy hiccups.

  
“You think you’re done?”

“N-no, I’m not-”

“We should get you into bed…”

“No. Gonna get sick. C-can’t-”

  
“I’ll go get you a trash can, then.” Akinori makes to leave, standing up slowly; his joints protest, but he ignores it. But then there’s hands gripping the hem of his shirt like a life depends on it, and his heart leaps into his throat with guilt.

“Please- p-please don’t leave, Nori-”

“...You’ve gotta get up, then.”

  
But, Tarou makes no move to stand; Konoha sighs, tugging at his boyfriend’s shoulder before settling on scooping him up bridal style. He’s heavy- but not _that_ heavy. Konoha would’ve been disgracing his old teammates if he couldn’t lift a hundred and forty pounds.

  
He can’t find the soul to particularly care that Onagawa’s pressing his tearstained, sick-covered face into his shoulder, bending over with a considerable amount of struggle in order to flush the mess down the toilet and grab the washcloth. He keeps Tarou tucked against him even when he’s grabbing the wastebasket, and plastic bin under his arm, he trudges off to the bedroom with Onagawa against his neck.

He sets the ill boy down on the mattress, trying unsuccessfully to pry the clutching hand away from his shirt.

“Tarou, I’ve gotta grab you something to drink- or at least _try_ to-”

“I’m g-gonna-”

  
“You’re gonna wh-”

  
Akinori lets out a sharp yell, and shoves the plastic container into Onagawa’s hands before all hell breaks loose.

  
He sighs in exasperation, using the moment as an opportunity to sprint off to the kitchen; he fills a glass of water from the sink, and searches frantically for the thermometer. When his search fails, he rushes back to the bathroom, digging around drawers and cabinets until he decides it just isn't worth it.

  
A retch tears his thoughts back to the present.

  
Right, Onagawa was throwing up.

  
He races back as quickly as he dares, setting the water down on the bedside table before bending over and panting. In favor of making his bedroom smell a little less like puke, he takes a plastic bag from the linen closet and trades it for the bucket Tarou’s holding.

  
He can feel teary eyes watching his back as he kneels with the trash can underneath the bathtub faucet, grumbling inwardly to himself as he washes it out and sprays it with that disgusting lemon-scented disinfectant.

  
Mercifully, Akinori thinks, Tarou hasn’t thrown up since he left; he lets the trash can clatter to the floor beside the bed, tangling his fingers in his own hair with a groan.

  
“S-sorry- I’m really- it’s-”

“Stop _apologizing_! You’re gonna make it _worse_ -”

  
Konoha feels a stab of guilt at the way Onagawa’s face pales, and the ravenette makes a pitiful-sounding whimper. No. Yelling at Tarou wasn’t going to make it better. Yelling at Tarou was the _worst_ thing to do right now.

  
Akinori sits on the sliver of the mattress to his boyfriend’s left, offering out his arms in an irritable, reluctant embrace; he has to break a little bit, though, at the way Tarou clutches feverishly at his loose shirt.

  
“Ha, don’t- don’t _strangle_ me, now-”

  
Onagawa coughs on a sob.

  
“Hey, I’m not- I’m not _mad_ , okay? Just…” he pauses, trying to step around words. “Just a tiny bit grossed out.”

  
Probably not the right words, he figures, when Tarou’s shoulder wrack with another tearful noise.

  
Akinori settles for pulling himself a little further onto the bed, moving Onagawa to the side gently; without removing the other boy’s hands from his shirt, he pulls the pale, clammy figure’s head into his lap before running long fingers through curly black hair.

“Hey, look at it this way. The movie was shit, alright? You did us a favor.”

  
The only response he gets is Tarou’s nose buried into his stomach with a hoarse cry.

  
He grunts in surprise, forcing a little laugh.

  
“Come on, baby. Look at me.”

 

A pause.

  
“ _No_.”

  
 _At least he talked_ , Konoha tells himself. _Score_.

  
“H-hey, it’s not the first time I’ve been thrown up on, at least. Yeah?” No answer. “You wanna know who did before you?”

  
He’s met with silence, but keeps going to keep himself from feeling awkward.

  
“It was in… oh, I think it was second year of middle school? You know Akaashi, that one hot kid from my old volleyball team? Most clumsy, embarrassed little first year I’ve ever met. He didn’t talk to anyone until he and Bokuto hit it off. I think I was kind of… a side chick? That’s probably the right term.” Akinori shrugs to himself, and chokes back a noise of pain when Tarou’s fingernails dig into his back it what he could only guess was a spike of nausea or a sob. “...But yeah. I remember it was our first practice match of the season, and he looked _totally_ green, so y’know, I kinda left him alone. I think he was gonna tell me or Bo he felt pretty sick, but the moment he opened his mouth, he threw up all _over_ me. I screamed, the whole team freaked out, it took them the whole practice to get him to stop crying… I sat in the showers the whole time- he wouldn’t make eye contact with me for two days and didn’t talk to me for- for like a week.”

“Were you mad at him?”

“Huh?”

  
Akinori jumps in realization that yes, Tarou is talking to him.

 

“I mean… no, not really. Grossed out, but not _mad_.”

  
There’s a long silence.

  
“I-” Konoha makes a vaguely questioning noise when Tarou’s voice breaks the silence. “I’m g-gonna be… I’m gonna throw up again- I think.”

  
He swallows back his sigh, ushering Onagawa into a sitting position; the plastic bin, still unfortunately reeking of lemon and the lingering scent of vomit, clatters into the ill boy’s hands as he squeezes it between legs that he draws up to his chest.

“You’re okay with me touching you?” Akinori asks, hand hovering above Tarou’s shoulder- he gives no response, except to spit pathetically into the wastebasket. What follows next is only a chain reaction, a rasping retch that brings a bit of snot into the bucket. Konoha rests one hand on his back, rubbing in a soft circle. “I’m sorry…”

  
Tarou shoulders jump with a strained hiccup, and something brown spills into the container- Konoha averts his eyes, fixating his gaze on the wood grains of his nightstand.

  
After a while- “Do you want me to clean out the bucket?”

A wet hiccup. “-Yeah.”

“Are you gonna be sick while I’m gone?”

“N- _hic!-_ n-no-”

  
Akinori doesn’t entirely believe him, but he’s got no other choice at this point.

  
He exchanges the bucket for the plastic bag again, holding his breath as he scampers off to the shower- he dumps the contents down the drain, rinsing it thoroughly before using what he guesses is about one-half of the cleaning spray he has left.

  
“Do you need anything? Some crackers? Another blanket?” he calls, and there’s no answer, though he can feel those teary grey eyes on his back.

  
Crackers might be good. Crackers might settle his stomach, if all else fails, Akinori tells himself, scurrying off to the kitchen to grab a package. He hides it on the other side of the nightstand, in case seeing it might set the ill boy off again.

  
He unplugs his laptop, booting it up before sliding under the blankets and putting it over his and Tarou’s legs; granted a twin-sized bed wasn’t the cleanest or comfiest for the two of them. Maybe he’d look at getting a queen. Or moving in with Onagawa after college. Both of those were a long shot on his current budget.

  
“What d’ya want to watch? It’s all illegal, probably. You know. Pirated and filed onto DVDs. Second-hand sellers. The whole deal.”

  
Tarou rests his head against Konoha’s side, underneath his arm, and the healthy boy laughs. “That tickles.”

“Don’t care.”

“Bleach it is, then.”

“Soul Eater.”

“ _Fine_.”

  
Konoha cues up the first episode, setting his laptop on his own bony knees; he uses his free hand to wrap around Tarou’s shoulder, rubbing circles into the feverishly warm skin.

  
“I have some sleep aids in my drawer. Or some antacids,” he offers, turning the volume down on the opening title.

“No.”

“Alright.”

  
He pauses, moving the cursor around on the screen. “You never told me your favorite character, y’know? Spill. We’ve watched this series…” He counts on his fingers. “...Twice.” He figures keeping Tarou talking must be helping fight off the queasiness; his face is more pale than grey or green now, which he has the heart to take as a good sign. “I love Liz. Flawless. Good taste in fashion. Everything I strive to be.”

  
Tarou seems to ponder it for a moment. “Probably Eruka.”

“Oh. So you’re one of those side-character people, huh?”

“Hnn.”

“You want the volume up?”

 

No answer, and it’s evident that Tarou has drifted off into an uncomfortable, sudden catnap. Akinori weighs his options and settles for leaving it down, eating a cracker from the package.

 

“Sorry I threw up on you.”

  
Konoha nearly chokes on his cracker when he tries to respond.

“Eh? You’re still apologizing about that? It’s _fine_. just watch the show.”

“Not fine. Gross. Felt really stupid.” The other boy’s eyes are barely open, squinting at the computer screen.

“Hey, throwing up is stupid. You’re not stupid, or gross. You’re perfect.”

“No. Pretty disgusting right now.” At that, against his better judgement, Konoha leans over to press a kiss to his sweaty forehead, and Onagawa groans. “Don’t _kiss_ me.”

“Too late.”

“Hope it tasted like vomit.” Akinori smiles slyly, shifting underneath the covers a little further. “You’re gonna get sick and I’ll feel even worse.”

“You’re just that irresistible.”

  
The drawn-out groan that Tarou gives him is enough to make him smile- he’s joking around with him now. That’s a big change from sobbing and clinging to his shirt. He likes to think it’s a good change.

“Might throw up again,” Tarou says quietly.

“Now?”

“No. Soon, maybe.”

“Try to sleep now, though. I’ll be here.”

  
Getting thrown up on wasn’t worth it, but at least Tarou was.

  
He’s sure the stomach bug to come for him is just shy of awful, though.

**Author's Note:**

> You've learned I like two very opposite ends of the fanfiction spectrum... whump/gore and sickfics/fluff. Kinda crazy, huh?
> 
> I have the next chapter of Undead almost finished! There's no cliffhanger, so I'm finding it a bit harder to motivate myself... but it'll be here soon! Thanks for your patience!


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